I always enjoyed casual teaching. You experienced a range of classes, schools, students, and did not have to worry about reports or so many other responsibilities that a teacher on a temporary contract or in a permanent position has. However, as a casual you do have one significant responsibility, which is to ensure that you mark all tasks you have students complete (unless otherwise directed by any note the normal teacher may leave, and you need to leave some form of note for the regular teacher as to what you have done and how the day/s went, what issues, if any, there were.

On my very first casual day I did not do this and when I was back in that school on the very next day, the teacher for that class pulled me aside and had a quiet word with me about my responsibilities as a casual teacher. Although the phrase had a quiet word tends to carry negative connotations, this teacher did so with good intent, with professionalism and with experience. I came to work in this school regularly and developed a lot of respect for this teacher. Her experience was significant (she only retired last year), her manner was direct, but her intentions were always good.

I experimented with different ways of leaving the notes for the regular teacher, but eventually struck upon the format that I offer as today's Friday Freebie. This form served me well and allowed me to simply fill in the blanks to let the teacher know what had been done, as well as gave the classroom teacher a direct line of contact to me if they needed it for the future.